Keep Your Laundry Room Safe!

Me: Ok, I just got off the phone with poison control. They said that the sanitizer Kate licked off of her hand probably won’t hurt her, but that we should watch her carefully and take her to the doctor if she starts stumbling around and acting like she’s drunk.

Andy: She’s two! She always acts like she’s drunk!! How are we supposed to tell the difference?!?

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That little story is humorous now, but I assure you, it wasn’t at the time!

The safety of household products is no joke – this includes laundry cleaning supplies! Jenny and I have been working with the American Cleaning Institute for the last few months to spread the word about their KEY Pledge laundry safety campaign, which aims to increase awareness surrounding the proper usage, storage and handling of single-load liquid laundry packets.

The little (extremely convenient, well-working) single-load liquid laundry packets that we all know and love and are fabulous. They really are. I am slightly obsessed with them. However, in 2012, poison centers received reports of 6,229 unintended exposures by children 5 and younger. Many consumers do not realize that each packet contains highly-concentrated detergent and should be treated like any other household cleaning product. If not safely stored, the laundry packets can attract dangerous interest from young children leading to injury from ingestion or exposure to the eyes – always store them up high, out of reach and sight.

It’s important that we as parents and caregivers keep single-load liquid laundry packets away from children and help prevent the risk of serious injury from ingestion or exposure to eyes. To help keep this top of mind, ACI wants us all to take the Key Pledge.

As an extra incentive, the American Cleaning Institute will randomly choose one person to win a $2,500 gift card* that can be put towards a laundry room makeover!

***NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Ends on December 31, 2013 at 5:00 p.m. ET. Open to legal residents of 50 U.S. and DC, 21 and older. Void where prohibited. For Official Rules, click here. Sponsor: American Cleaning Institute.

People all over the country are joining in – take a look and see how your home state is doing! Florida, California, Texas, and really most of the Midwest are looking pretty good, but people in Montana and Wyoming? You have some work to do!

Always remember these tips for a safe laundry room & routine:
• Do not let children handle laundry packets
• Do not puncture or pull packets apart
• Store out of child’s sight and reach
• Keep the packet’s package closed and in a dry place
• Packets quickly dissolve upon contact with water, wet hands, or saliva so it is necessary to keep them dry

Here’s a quick video about important laundry safety tips from child safety expert and KEY Pledge spokesperson Kimberlee Mitchell. Kimberlee has been collaborating with the ACI on a series of safety videos, and this is the first! Keep an eye out for additional videos in the series including important reminders about the proper precautions when using, storing and handling single-load liquid laundry packets.

Comments

This is great information! Our first ever Poison Control call was an incident with powdered detergent. ACK. Of course since then…”is it bad my 2 year old bit a chunk out of her birthday candle?” “My grandma hid her pills and my baby found them, but didn’t swallow them”, and so many others I started to think maybe I was calling too frequently. (It’s been over a year since my last call though…crossing fingers).